Fame and fortune

Imagine, just for a moment, an absurd situation. And when I say absurd, I mean totally and utterly absurd.

Imagine that you are flying from Munich to Düsseldorf with Air Berlin and you are sitting in row five. Imagine further that, before the plane takes off, you recognize a man in row three who is standing and talking to two of his friends in row four, just ahead of you. After the initial shock of seeing this man on an internal flight in Germany, you realize that it is David Beckham.

When you leave the plane, you ask one of the two men in row four whether the three of them are in Germany on holiday or for work. "Oh, did you recognize David?" the man asks you politely.

"Yes," you reply, adding quickly: "And do you play football yourself?". The man says he does. When you tell him apologetically that you don't recognize him and ask him for his name, he says — very patiently and still being very friendly — "Christiano. Christiano Ronaldo". (I did warn you that this story was going to be absurd.)

At this point, you'd feel pretty stupid, wouldn't you? It would be like asking Julia Roberts, "Do you act yourself?" Or asking Bruce Springsteen, "Do you play music yourself?". Or asking Kate Moss, "Do you do any modelling yourself?".

Of course, such a situation is so absurd that it couldn't possibly happen in real life. Except — and this is where it gets not only absurd but also more than a trifle embarassing — it did happen to me last week.

The man I recognized on my flight was Steve Davis, the English snooker player who has won more titles than anyone else, including six world championships in the 1980s.

The man I didn't recognize — and who I asked, "Do you play snooker yourself?" — was another English player, Ronnie ("The Rocket") O'Sullivan. O'Sullivan was last year's world champion and is regarded by many as being the most talented snooker player of all time. Steve Davis calls him a "genius". Whoops!

O'Sullivan has won more than £5 million in prize money, making him the second-highest earner at the snooker table of all time. As he told me, he and Davis were on their way back to England after playing exhibition matches in Berlin and Munich. (I never found out who the "third man" was.)

Anyway, thank you Ronnie for being so sweet in the way you replied to what must have been the most absurd question you have ever been asked.

And just so that the same thing doesn't happen to our readers, here's a video of O'Sullivan in action. A true genius, even if I didn't recognize him.